A Water Buffalo Dairy

WSJ:

But there are good bovine reasons, Mr. Ramini found, that there is little buffalo mozzarella in the U.S. Unlike in Italy, where water buffalo have long been bred to maximize milk production, most of the 8,000 or so water buffalo in this country trace to ancestors imported in the 1970s for a different trait: their appetite for aquatic weeds. They aren't native to the U.S. or related to the American Buffalo, which, technically, isn't a buffalo but a bison.
"The U.S. population is in borderline feral condition," says Kent Underwood, who worked on a water-buffalo dairy in Vermont that went out of business and now does consulting.
A water buffalo produces about 15 pounds of milk daily. A well-bred dairy cow can produce more than 50 pounds. The low lactation level is one reason other U.S. water-buffalo-cheese operations haven't lasted long.
And extracting that milk requires humoring the beasts, says Ron Klein, whose small Michigan water-buffalo herd stopped producing milk when the weather got cold. Mr. Klein says he sold water-buffalo Camembert for as much as $50 a pound. But rather than invest the time and money to keep his herd producing milk most of the year, he sold them and is focusing on goat milk.

I didn't realize that Italian mozzarella came from water buffalo.  Is it just impossible to get water buffalo heifers imported through Customs from Italy, or do the heifers just cost too much?  We send Holsteins all over world, I just figured you'd go buy some from Italy and, boom, get the water buffalo milk.